Here's the Crucial Idea that You Need to Successfully Refute Identity Politics

Unfortunately this idea is typically missing when good people oppose identity politics

Jun 23, 2024

The crucial idea that is missing from most commentary (both pro- and con-) about identity politics is this:

“Among ordinary people, An Injury to One is an Injury to ALL”

Many people today don't understand why this idea is true. For example some people think that poor whites in the South benefited from the racist Jim Crow laws; they have no clue that the opposite was the case (as explained in one of my linked articles below.)

Some people have no idea why men have gone on strikes to demand an end to pay discrimination against women (described in one of my linked articles below.)

Some people are perplexed about an incident I report in one of my articles below, in which a white blue-collar worker who fit the stereotype of a racist (he used the "n" word etc.) declared to his fellow white (and equally racist) workers, when a black worker didn't get his paycheck on payday, "Nobody returns to the shop floor until the ni**er gets his fuckin' paycheck."

The reason people don't understand such behavior is because they don't grasp, they just don't understand, why An Injury to One is An Injury to All. According to the logic of identity politics this behavior (solidarity behavior) is irrational. Critics of identity politics would be far more persuasive if they explained why such solidarity behavior is very rational; but I see that few such critics do this unfortunately.

I have written about why such behavior is totally rational, in articles that are linked below and that I hope you will read if you don't understand why it's true.

The fact is, however, that among ordinary people:

An injury to women (such as discrimination against them) harms men too.

An injury to racial minorities harms the non-racial-minority persons too.

An injury to Muslims harms non-Muslims too.

An injury to Palestinians harms Israeli Jews too.

Note that I say "among ordinary people." When it comes to class conflict, however, i.e. the conflict between those who want society to be based on the egalitarian values of equality (no rich and no poor) and mutual aid, versus those who want society to be based on class inequality with some rich and some poor and with the rich dominating and controlling the rest, then an injury to the former group is indeed a _benefit_ to the latter group. There is a very real conflict between the upper ruling class and ordinary people.

This is why it is wrong to throw in the word "class" with words such as race and gender and sexual orientation and religion and nationality and ethnicity, etc., as if class were just one more way people are distinguished from each other (see examples here and here and here and here and here.) But class is a fundamentally different kind of distinction. The division along class lines (i.e., about which values should shape society, equality or inequality, domination of the many by the few or mutual aid) is a division that we want people to resolve by one side (most ordinary people) DEFEATING the other side (the rich ruling class), not by denying that there is a real conflict between the two sides.

In contrast, the divisions amongst ordinary people (who share egalitarian values) along race, gender, ethnic, etc., lines are things that harm BOTH sides of the division, because they undermine the solidarity that BOTH sides need to challenge the power of the people who oppress BOTH sides: the rich ruling class.

Here are some articles of mine that discuss all of this:

"True or False: An Injury to One Is an Injury to All?"

"Is it a 'Privilege' Not to be Discriminated Against?"

"Racial Discrimination Against Non-Whites is Rampant and Harms Working Class People of ALL Races"

“Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Explanation that Jim Crow Harmed Working Class Whites As Well As Blacks”

"Why and How Big Money Promotes 'White Privilege' Rhetoric""

"Misandry: An Obstacle to Solidarity Between Men and Women"

"Israeli Leaders and Hamas Need Each Other" and “Israel Funds Hamas and Works to Keep It in Power” and “Israel’s Government Attacks Ordinary Jews As Well As Palestinians”

"Class Conflict in Israel"